This is a blog about the radical notion that women are people. I also like some other radical notions, like that words mean things, or that sometimes things are connected to other things, or that context is real.

The Base Assumptions

Feminism for me is a lens through which to examine the politics and power of social phenomena, law and policy, pop culture, and just about everything else. It is not a stand-alone philosophy, but a way of looking at the world which acknowledges that women are important and relevant. And not just for having babies.

Nothing you or anyone else does occurs in a vacuum. The culture in which you were raised, and your particular intersection of privilege and oppression, has an enormous influence on the decisions you are able to make or not. Saying "because I chose it" or "because I like it" in no way exonerates you from examining the context in which those choices occur. Liberal feminists, I'm looking at you.

To that end, I believe that prostitution, pornography, stripping, lad's mags, wet t-shirt contests, etc etc etc, are emblematic of a culture which believes that women are for male pleasure, not as beings who exist for their own sakes. This is NOT a critique of the women involved in the sex trade industry, but of the industry itself, and the culture which supports it. Until the context is radically altered, there are too many coercive factors acting on women to discuss truly meaningful choices.

Men and women may indeed be different in the brain from birth, but the way our brains learn - that is, they physically change - mean that we have absolutely no way of separating what is essential and what is social. Therefore I eschew any and all statements such as "Women are just better at (childcare, housekeeping, cooking, nursing, etc)", or "Men are just more suited to (law, medicine, politics, business, being respected as full human beings with complete rights)".